Recent Headlines

In August, Mayor Julián Castro spoke of “educational attainment” and the need to change the educational trajectory of our young people.

This was before asking the voters to approve an eighth-cent sales tax increase to invest, in the next eight years, in full-day pre-K for more than 22,000 4-year-olds. He proposed creating four centers of excellence that would set a new standard of accountability by requiring parents to read to their children, help with their homework and attend regular teacher-parent conferences. The mayor also emphasized that this program would tell employers that we are committed to producing a skilled workforce necessary to thrive in San Antonio.

The City Council is a political unit and should not be involved in prescribing educational programs. I am not sure what the specific qualifications of the mayor and council members are related to educational expertise.

In addition, critics have compared this initiative with the Head Start program, saying that it has turned into nothing more than a massive jobs program for adults. With its unimpressive record, why do supporters say preschool “works”?

The pre-K tax increase was rushed to the November 2012 general election rather than the city election in May of this year. The May date would have given voters, the taxpayers, more time to ask questions and determine whether the pre-K program would actually benefit the majority of 4-year-olds in San Antonio.

More recently, criticism arose over the lack of preparation for this project. Recent letters to the San Antonio Express-News have referred to the scramble by the mayor and his city cronies to win school district approval for the program. Again, the problem emerged of city officials not having the expertise to deal with educational matters.

Finally, the mayor referred to the job skills that would eventually result from this program, but he did not identify specific workforce jobs, whether police, military, government, etc.